Plugins are one of the WordPress’ greatest strengths. Because of the versatility they provide, for some, plugins are the most loved component of WordPress.

Since WordPress is an open-source community, anyone can write and submit a plugin to the WordPress plug-in repository, which means there is a huge range of great and less-great plugins to choose. When making the choice, make sure you the plugin you want to install is compatible with the latest version of WordPress. Also, check its rating (you’d want to go for four stars or better) and check out the review in search for more information about possible decreased performance and security holes.

Another aspect to take into consideration is the plugins’ author. Here are a couple of authors’ I trust, with links to their websites, with all kind of plugins:

Andrew Nacin
Mark Jaquith
Donncha
Joost De Valk
and Frederick Townes, the WordPress legend who developed the W3 Total Cache plugin.

As for our favorite plugins, here’s a list of those we use and love:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the most comprehensive and free website analytics tool in the market – it allows you to see where your visitors are coming from and what they are doing on your website. It is a great site-optimization tool. There are detailed guides on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress and how to use Google Analytics.

MailChimp

MailChimp allows you to build email lists and send emails to your subscribers. In this way, keeping in touch with WordPress audience was made easier than ever. Here’s an ultimate guide to using MailChimp and WordPress.

Sucuri

Security is going to be a big concern for online business owners in 2016. Sucuri’s web application firewall is probably  the best protection you can get for your site. They monitor and protect your site from DDoS, malware threats, XSS attacks, brute force attacks, and basically every other type of attack.
If you don’t have a firewall on your WordPress site, you might want to consider getting this one.

Backup Buddy

We all just hate losing our data, so installing a reliable backup system is a wise choice, regardless of what you’re using your WordPress for. This backup plugin is one of the most reliable and easiest ways to backup and restore your WordPress with just a few clicks.

W3 Total Cache

This plugin, created by an already mentioned trusted author Frederick Townes, this plugin will help your website rank higher in Google, which means more visitors. W3 Total Cache allows you to serve compressed and cached files to your visitors, which reduces the load on your server, so the website becomes faster. Here’s the beginners’ guide on how to install and setup W3 Total Cache.

What do all the plugins above have in common?

They provide the necessary functionality for sites we manage and have fully vetted developers. Thus, we can and do employ them with confidence; and they greatly enhance our WordPress experience.
That’s what plugins should do: enhance your WordPress experience in necessary ways.

Your part of the job is only to find the ones you need.

To keep you safe, contact Awontis today!